How To Automate Your Job Search

This is my super easy guide to automate your search for sound engineer jobs (and sound designer, AV tech, etc.). I’ve used it to find some great sound engineer jobs and continue to use it to stay on top of audio industry demands.

Step 1 : Search for sound engineer jobs

If you live in the Bay Area like I do, you can search 9 counties (with 400 theatre companies!) all at once from https://sfbay.craigslist.org. But what if you want to search for sound engineer, audio engineer, audio technician, AV tech, and sound designer posts in every city within 50 miles? Time to setup that RSS feed. It’s easy, just make a list of all search terms and locations you would like to use, then input them one at a time, each in a new browser tab.

It takes a little while, and there are some sites like Search Tempest that automate this task, but I’ve seen sites like this go under and get boxed out by Craigslist, so I think the most reliable solution is to do the searches one-by-one directly from Craigslist. Don’t worry. You’ll only have to do this once.

If you are getting too many results with every query, try restricting the search. These will go directly into your RSS reader, so you don’t want 100 of them every day. Try searching job titles only and restricting it to contract and part-time work.

Step 2: Add to your RSS reader

Google Reader is dead, long live Google Reader. I use Feedly. It has a nice interface and is easy to use. Create a category called Job Listings. Go back to your job search tabs and at the bottom-right of the page you will see an RSS link; save that link. In Feedly, click on Add Content, paste the link, and add it to your Job Listings category.

That’s it! Every day you’ll get fresh results without running all over the interwebs.

Step 3: Setup alerts for Indeed and Simply Hired

I’ve noticed that Indeed and SimplyHired sometimes have pro audio jobs, so it might be worthwhile to add those to your daily search, but you will likely get some duplicates. Unfortunately, I haven’t found an easy way to add these results to Feedly. For each search, you will need to setup an email alert, which is easy enough.

Step 4: Commit to a schedule

Schedule at least 10 minutes each day to check Feedly and your email alerts. When you find good opportunities, apply right away or schedule time to come back to them.

Have any good tips to add for automating your sound engineer job search? Comment below!